
Cluster Integrative Animal Biology
Animals, including humans, are complex systems that continuously have to adapt to a changing environment. Understanding adaptation of these organisms requires a deep knowledge of their biology and functioning which also is relevant with regard to health, performance, sustainable food production and nature conservation.
C
Objectives:
- Sustainable Aquaculture and Blue Growth: to unravel key factors determining aquaculture and seafood production, thereby contributing to sustainable and novel exploitation of aquatic (eco)systems
- Resilient Animals in Sustainable Ecosystems: to understand biomechanical, behavioural, and life-history adaptations of animals at individual and population-level, thereby also contributing to animal welfare and nature conservation
- Animal and Human Health and Performance: to generate fundamental insights into the mechanisms underlying health and performance of individuals, and the environmental factors affecting them, also providing innovative solutions for the improvement of health and performance
Chair groups of this cluster:
Behavioural Ecology
The chair group studies the causes and consequences of animal behaviour with a focus on social contexts.

Human and Animal Physiology
We perform molecular physiological research and academic training focused on mechanistic understanding of energy metabolism in health and disease of humans and animals.

Cell Biology and Immunology
The vision of the chair group is to generate fundamental insights and applicable innovations to improve immunomodulation by diet or vaccination.

Host-Microbe Interactomics
The chair group's research ranges from work on the molecular mechanisms of diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria to the interactions between and beneficial bacteria and their human or animal hosts

Experimental Zoology
The chair group combines physics, engineering, molecular techniques and modelling in a quantitative systems analysis to solve fundamental problems in biology.

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
The members of the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (WEC) study how humans influence wildlife. They examine both direct mechanisms as well as more indirect mechanisms that are part of larger-scale processes.
